Too far gone
by Ms.Jackson53
Summary: what if things had gone differently in 6x09? what if Ron had lived?
1. Chapter 1

Ron was terrified. Who wouldn't be when you're walking through a herd of undead monsters, despite the few times he risked taking a peek outside the walls he hadn't seen many. So when one of them bumped against his shoulder while walking past, he hoped no one would hold it against him when he gave a rather undignified squeak.

He tried not to focus on them, on the hanging jaws holding on by pieces of stretched sinew that looked ready to snap. Many had their organs spilling out and none were fully intact. He looked away from an especially terrifying dead one, who's face was almost completely demolished, the previous person had nothing but a layer of muscle and torn and hanging skin as a face.

Ron looked ahead of him and away from the thing that used to be a person, someone with feelings and a family and morals. Now it was simply a corpse on its feet, everything it was, everything it cared about, meaning nothing anymore. Ron tried not to think too much about the dead ones, he tried wrapping his mind around the concept of it many times, of simply forgetting who you were, of being able to stand even after death. His mom had told him not to dwell on it, that it's just the way things are.

Ron shook away his thoughts and looked at the boy standing in front of him clutching his hand with white knuckles. Ron tried not to hate Carl, he tried to justify that what Rick did was right, that his dad was an out of control and abusive drunk. Ron knew that his dad wasn't a good person. That he didn't care about him or Sam or mom, that all he ever cared about was booze. But despite all the times Ron cried underneath the mans pulled back fist, all the times he walked in to find his mom lying on the floor and bleeding.

He couldn't help but be sad when he had died. Yeah his dad hit them but the very rare times he wasn't drunk he was a fairly good dad. They would talk about girls and his dad would laugh every time he pulled a face. Things were simpler before his dad realized his immense love for alcohol. He knew he was foolish to believe his dad could go back to the man he once was, but he hoped maybe one day he could find help, that he could be the kind and loving father he knew. But because of Rick Grimes it could never happen, his family could never be whole again.

Ron clenched his teeth trying for the millionth time to not let the thought of watching Rick die seep into his mind, no matter how much he wanted to see it become reality he refused to become his father, to enjoy other people's pain and misery without remorse.

Ron was pulled from his thoughts as everyone abruptly stopped. He looked ahead of him confused. His eyes widened as he realized the reason they had stopped was because Sam had broken out of the line and stood in front of mom still clutching her hand like a life-line. Tears were running down his face and his eyes held a look of utter fear. Ron had seen that look many times, when his father would lash out at the boy.

Ron had seen this coming on some level. He knew his brother wouldn't be able to handle this, after a lifetime of being sheltered, drawing and eating cookies. Ron was sheltered too but he knew their lives depended on this, he had learned to hide his fear, to not let it consume him.

Sam however did not share his ability to suck it up and stay strong. He was currently shaking and straining to not cry out while mom reassured him, trying her hardest to get him to keep moving.

"Sam, hey you can do this, Sam just look at mom" Ron tried, hoping to help the boy move along.

"Sam I need you to come with me, I need you to be strong" Jessie tried pleading with the boy.

Sam was shaking and mumbling "I-I want to"

Ron was ready to once again try to convince his brother to move when all of sudden his world came crashing down. He hadn't seen the dead ones, not until they were grasping Sam with their weathered and leathery hands. They bit into his head and shoulder. Ron could do nothing but watch as the blood poured down Sam's twisted and screaming face. The dead ones remained latched onto him tearing away his flesh, consuming him. They ripped away his skin and pulled away his flesh with their yellow and green teeth.

Ron could here his mom screaming, he could here Carl in front of him trying to get her to calm down and keep moving, but it was all muffled and blurred as he watched his brother get eaten alive, his screams ringing through his ears and resonating through his skull.

And then his mothers muffled cries stopped and Ron almost dreaded looking forward already knowing full well she was gone. Ron watched as she suffered the same fate as Sam.

Then he noticed something behind her: Rick Grimes, the man watched with a grief stricken face as Ron's mother was torn apart. Ron felt anger boiling inside him, how dare he, how dare he have the nerve to feel any kind of grief when this was all his fault. He wasn't the one who had suffered, who had just watched everything he loved die and he had the audacity to pretend like he gave a damn.

Ron turned his attention to Carl who was struggling and calling for his dad. Jessie, even though she was in the process of being eaten alive held onto Carl's hand with a death grip. One so strong apparently, because the boy tried pulling away several times, but to no avail.

Rick seeming to suddenly realize his son was in peril because he pulled his axe out of its sheath. His face was unreadable and stoic as he made his way to Carl, hefting the weapon. Ron didn't know what he was doing at first he just knew that whatever it was it was going to get someone killed. Just like everything else the mad man did.

Ron watched in horror as the man pulled his arm all the way back, axe in hand, and brought it down to meet Jessie's wrist. He held no more grief in his eyes as he hacked away at her arm as though she were nothing, as though all the kindness she had shown the murderous man didn't matter. At this moment Rick cared about nothing but his son. Because that was who Rick Grimes was, he's selfish, a killer with no remorse, without a fleeting thought for others.

Ron once again felt his anger resurface. He shuddered at the horrible thoughts running through his head of the many different ways he would like to watch Rick Grimes die, he wanted the man to suffer, no he wanted him to feel the same way he did. He wanted Rick to lose everything. It scared him that he wished more than anything that Rick would watch Carl get ripped apart the same way Sam and his mom had. Ron shook his head trying hard to dispel his thoughts, what was he thinking, Carl didn't deserve that, maybe his dad did, but Carl had been nothing but nice to him, and here he was wishing the kid would get ripped apart, what's happening to him? He's becoming like his father wishing for other people's misery, what has he become?

Ron was ripped from his thoughts as Carl fell to the ground with Jessie's severed hand still wrapped firmly around his wrist. The boy quickly got to his feet, readjusting his hat and prying Jessie's cold hand from his now bruised wrist.

Ron's attention was dragged down to the ground where a gun lay in the blood stained and once perfectly green grass. Ron recognized it as the gun Carl had taken from him after he had attempted to kill the boy in the garage. Without a second thought he quickly reached down and picked it up, not a hundred percent sure why. Ron turned his attention to Carl and Rick as they gained their bearings. They were going to make it, they were going to get away unscathed while Ron had just lost everything. He couldn't let that happen, they didn't deserve to make it, they didn't deserve to be happy, they were killers, they needed to pay.

Ron held up the gun with shaking hands. He knew what he was about to do was wrong. That maybe there was a chance that Rick didn't deserve this. But at the moment, Ron just couldn't find it in himself to care.

"You"

Carl turned at the sound of Ron's voice with an utterly surprised look. Ron felt a twist in his stomach at the boy's betrayed face. Carl had given him a chance. He had trusted him. Carl didn't believe he was a killer but here he was.

He couldn't help but feel bad for disappointing the boy. Ron had learned fairly quickly that Carl was a good person, the moment the boy had looked him in the eye he knew it. The first time he had seen him, despite how guarded he was, Ron could still see the hurt in the boy's beautiful ocean blue orbs. He could tell Carl was traumatized, that he had seen too much. Ron had never had to survive out there, but he wasn't oblivious, he could only imagine the horrors the kid had to have faced at the age of fifteen.

And here he was ready to take the last thing he had left. At this moment Ron Anderson knew he was too far-gone.

"You" Ron said one more time, finally embracing that this is who he was, he was a monster. He was his father.

And with that final thought he pulled the trigger.

He didn't think Carl would do it, he didn't think the boy would do something so stupid yet brave and selfless, something Ron would have never done for his father. But there was nothing he could do now.

All he could do was watch as the fifteen-year-old boy leapt in front of his father without hesitation, without a second thought. Ron's eyes grew wide as he watched the bullet burst into the boy's chest a cloud of crimson blowing out from the edges of the injury.

Carl clutched his chest with blood seeping between his pale and nimble fingers. He stared up at Ron. His electric blue eyes held no sadness, no fear of dying. Ron knew Carl didn't regret sacrificing himself. It's who he was. It was like this is what the boy had been waiting for, a death worthy of dying, Being able to take his last breath knowing he did the right thing.

Ron's mouth hung open and his eyes were wide as the gun slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground. Ron stepped forward he wasn't sure why, he just felt he needed to do something.

But it was too late, Carl's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell backwards into Rick's arms, who was there ready to catch him.

Ron had thought he wanted Rick to suffer, that he had wanted him to watch Carl die but at this moment, watching Rick's face twist in pure agony, watching Carl bleeding and on the brink of death, he immediately realized how wrong he was.

 **I think this might just be a one shot, if you would like for this to be multi-chaptered just let me know :)**


	2. Chapter 2: Things change

She should have been able to do it.

She had done much worse things, she had killed people that deserved it much less, so why couldn't she.

It was for her family after all, to keep Carl alive, to preserve Rick's sanity, she would do anything for them even if it meant killing a kid so why did she freeze? Why did she do nothing but watch, as a bullet made it's way right into Carl's chest, into her happiness, into something she had been trying so hard to keep a hold of?

She clutched her katana, her useless weapon, keeping hold of each miserable soul she slaughtered, and she had thought she was more than ready to add Ron to her shelf of guilty successes.

A tear made it's way down Michonne's cheek as she watched Rick cradle Carl's head in his lap. She could hardly look at him, her failure, her weakness, something she cared so much for but couldn't save.

Carl's head was lolled to the side, his usually emotion filled features were slack, his dark chocolate hair that she loved to card her fingers through while he slept fell into his closed eyes, dark lashes fanned over unusually pale blood smeared cheeks.

Even more tears fell as she watched a line of blood trail from the hole in the boy's chest, down his arm to spill onto a pale unmoving hand. Carl's spidery and nimble fingers lay limp; they weren't readjusting his hat, or wiping baby food off the corners of Judith's mouth, or making Rick and Michonne breakfast when they slept in.

 _He was gone_

She failed, this is what she lived for, she lived to watch him grow, even when life had torn away his happy ending, when the dead invaded and ruined any chance of him living a normal and carefree life, she had believed that if she could keep both him and Rick around long enough that they could find their own happy ending, they could find that semblance of a comfortable existence the Grimes oh so deserved.

She looked down at the tragedy that lay before her. Rick holding the limp body in his arms, Ron sitting on his knees in front of them, staring at Carl's seemingly dead body. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his hands fisting his light brown hair.

 _What had he done?_

This wasn't supposed to happen, he was supposed to kill Rick, spare the last of civilization of the man's insanity. He was supposed to get revenge and even though Carl didn't deserve it he wasn't completely against the notion of Carl feeling the grief he had at the moment he watched his family die and his world fall apart.

But this, this wasn't what he wanted, Rick deserved it, Carl had nothing to do with it, he was a good person, one of the few he still knew, even after everything he had seen, Carl was humane, he saw pain, but still sought happiness, he kept going when there was hardly any reason to, and what reason he had in such a cruel world? Ron didn't know, but Michonne did.

Carl was alive for Rick, he was alive because he knew that without him Rick would reach the point of no return, he wouldn't be dead but he would be as good as. The sanity that Rick lost keeping Carl breathing and in good mind, would be lost if Carl died, and yet he gave it all up, everything he had gone through, all the horrors he had seen, all the terrible things he had done, all to be there for Rick.

But it wasn't over. Ron and Michonne watched as Rick's expression changed from grief stricken to determination, a look Michonne had seen many times before, when he confronted the governor, in terminus when he lead them to safety, when he fought for his cause in Alexandria and killed Pete, but this look was different, it was desperate. Rick lifted the limp body into his arms. Carl's arm hung at his side, Ron gulped as he watched blood drip from Carl's nimble fingers and hit the pavement.

Michonne lopped off head after head from the walkers that surrounded them, this was it this depended on everything, if they got him there in time, if they could save him, so that he could save them.

She had made it through plenty of walker heads with Rick behind her when she realized something, she turned and looked behind them, Ron wasn't following them.

Michonne stopped, she knew it was stupid, she knew she should just let the kid die, but if she did than Carl would be dying for nothing. She turned to Rick and grabbed his arm.

"Get to the infirmary, I'll meet you there" she said.

She lifted a hand to Carl's cheek, running her thumb along the soft skin, "I'll see you there too" She whispered, kissing his forehead, for what she hoped wasn't the last time.

She knew Rick wanted to argue, but there wasn't time, his arms and shirt were already stained with Carl's blood, he kept going, dodging the walkers in his path.

Ron knew it was coming for him, he had taken his blood and guts sheet off already, so he wasn't surprised that the walker in front of him ambled towards him, arms outstretched and jaw snapping. But instead of fear coursing through him as he watched the thing near him, he felt… _relief_. This would set things right, he deserved this; he would see his family again. And Carl, if he lived would never have to see the face of the person who had caused him such an immense pain.

He was ready. The thing grasped his shoulders and he didn't pull away. He sat and waited for his death, for what was right. He let out a breath, it was over and he was okay with that.

Ron's eyes snapped open as the head of the walker was cut in two, a flash of silver slicing past his eyes.

Ron looked up to the person who took away his peace, his relief. Michonne stood above him, dark hand clutching her blood stained katana, a blank look schooling her features.

"Get up" It was a demand, she wasn't giving him a choice and she wasn't doing it for him.

"No" Ron said, she wasn't going to take this away, "I _shot_ him and I'm making it right"

"You want to make it right?" She asked

She kneeled in front of him and lifted his chin. Ron could see the pain swirling in her brown eyes.

"I didn't kill you like I should have, he's dying because you're alive, if you die now than it's all for nothing and I'll be damned if I let you waste it"

She stood and extended her hand for him to take, "Get the hell up"

Walkers were starting to take notice of the two. They didn't have much time. But Ron wasn't sure he could do it, face Rick much less Carl. They would hate him and he wouldn't blame them.

He looked up at Michonne, she had come back for him even after what he had done she had risked her life to save him.

He took her hand, he didn't want to, he wanted to die, repent for the horrible thing he had done. But he just needed to know Carl lived, he needed to know that even though his happiness was destroyed maybe Carl could still find some.

Rick ducked underneath the arms desperately reaching for him and clinging to his clothes and even though he knew it was more than a possibility that he's been scratched by now, he had to keep going, he was going to get Carl to safety if it was the last thing he ever did.

His arms ached from carrying the dead weight of a teenager and his legs felt like lead from all the ducking, dodging and running he was doing but he could already see the infirmary in the distance, it was less than likely someone was actually there but after everything he had done to keep Carl alive, to watch his boy grow up, to see that rarity of a smile, he wasn't going to give up now not when there was still a chance.

Rick looked down at his son, his hope, everything that meant anything to him, he wouldn't trade Carl for anything in the world, but he would trade anything in the world for Carl.

He looked back up, blinking away the tears that would come eventually, but at the moment this was all that mattered. He ducked beneath the walkers in his path before stepping on to the porch.

The door opened and there stood Denise waiting for him, he could see Spencer, Heath and Aaron running around the room collecting everything needed to help Carl.

He walked over to the gurney in the middle of the room and set his too pale son on the leather. He watched as Denise and the other occupants of the room buzzed around the dying boy.

 _Dying_

Carl was dying. His light, his life and everything he lived for. He watched blood drip from a limp pale hand that hung over the edge of the gurney, chocolate brown hair splayed over closed lids and fanned around his head on the bed where he could very well meet his doom, his faint breaths lifting his chest _up down up down_.

Rick fisted his hair and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was, he was-

The door to the infirmary opened and there stood Michonne, and standing next to her…

Ron hadn't expected the attack, he knew Rick would lash out at him, but he didn't think the moment he stepped into the infirmary that he would be slammed against a wall with a gun pressed to his temple.

"You should've died" Rick growled, "It should've been you"

The cold metal muzzle of the colt python dug into Ron's temple even more. He was shaking, a few tears making their way down his cheeks. He knew he deserved it and Rick was right it should have been him, Ron could see Carl lying deathly still on the gurney, blood dripping from the edges to create a puddle of the precious life water. He had done that, he had almost killed someone, he had almost killed Carl and for what? Self pity, what was done was done there was no reason for Carl to get hurt, to pay the price for something that wasn't his fault. And he didn't need to, he had leapt in front of the bullet, he was willing to die for his dad and without a second thought, Carl was brave, he was strong, far stronger than Ron would ever be and it was all his fault that Carl was lying in a puddle of his own blood.

Michonne placed a hand on Rick's arm. Ron was pressed against the wall, tears streaming down his face, he was pale and shaking, his trembling hand gripping Rick's wrist.

"He's a kid, Rick," she reminded him.

He looked back at her than at the teenager that stood in front of him, the boy had been abused, watched his mother and brother die, he lived in a world he knew nothing about, a cruel world that he wasn't ready for, and now he was to carry the burden of having almost killed someone.

Rick's grip on the boy eased and the hand holding the gun dropped, Ron slid back down the wall, breathing raggedly.

Rick turned without a second glance at the boy, he didn't want to see him anymore, he couldn't. This was the monster the world had created from a seventeen-year-old boy. And he wasn't ready to accept that he wasn't the first or the last thing that would threaten him or Carl's life.

Rick remembered what Carol had told him after terminus, about what Lizzie had done, she had killed her own sister without remorse, without a second thought or a single tear shed, not because she was cold blooded or even a bad person, simply because she thought it was right, she thought it was what the world was like, that it was how things were supposed to be.

He could hear the stifled sobs from the teen behind him, he knew that wasn't what was going through Ron's head when he had shot Carl, but he knew what their world could do to a kid, an impressionable, emotional, vulnerable child who grew up knowing nothing but pain, and he knew that Ron felt that, even before the world had ended.

He looked over at Carl again, at his son, the son that Ron had almost taken away because he didn't know any other way to handle his emotions, his dad had always let everything out on them, inflicted pain on them to make himself feel better, maybe Ron thought that was normal, that that was how things were supposed to be, that the only way to get passed something and feel relief was to hurt, and hurt he did.

Rick looked away from Carl's motionless body, he couldn't look at his son any more and he definitely couldn't look at the broken teenager behind him.

He gazed out the window at the dead, they couldn't hide from them forever, they had to face the walkers eventually, he had to make sure that when Carl wakes up he'll be safe at least as safe as he can be in this world.

Rick pulled out his axe, he walked to the door despite Michonne's protests, Carl getting shot may have been Ron's fault, but these things were partially to blame, they took over their world, destroyed their lives, they ruled their whole existence and though Rick knew it was stupid and he could very well die, he was fed up and he wasn't going to let them rule him anymore, at least not tonight.

He opened the door, stepped out and he was gone.

Ron stared dumbfounded at the door he wasn't sure what to do, Rick was out there facing all those things alone, Carl was lying with a bullet wound in his chest and his family was dead, gone, eaten, devoured by a cruel reality.

Ron slid down the wall, he sat in the corner watching as Denise worked on her sutures, Michonne yelling for her to hurry, Heath, Spencer and Aaron waiting anxiously at the door for her to finish to go assist Rick but everything was a blur.

 _His family was dead._

Ron fisted his light brown hair. They were really gone and he knew it, no more teasing Sam or eating his mom's dinners. There were bad parts but in their world where there was nothing but dust and decay beyond the walls, he was happy to have them, but now they were all gone.

He looked up at the blurry image of Carl's unmoving body and he felt a pang in his heart, one he was sure would never go away.

He had almost taken one of the only things Rick had left in the world; he had almost taken Carl's life. He knew Rick wasn't the murderous tyrant he made him out to be, he knew Rick cared for Carl and everyone he had brought through those gates. He knew now how wrong he had been, at the time all he could feel was hate for the man he thought was uncaring of all the people he had killed, uncaring of Ron's family. But the look he had seen on Rick's face as he had lifted Carl into his arms, as he had pressed that gun to Ron's head, as he stepped out that door to ensure that Alexandria would live to see another day, that was the real Rick Grimes and Ron would never forget it.


End file.
